Today, the day Barry Bonds broke Hank Aaron's home run record*, was a "must-win" day for the Red Sox in Anaheim and not surprisingly, Tim Wakefield was not up to task. His inconsistency has been maddening this year. The Red Sox are now 5 games up on the Yankees, their lowest cushion since May 2nd. Assuming 95 games will win the AL east, only 3 games above .500 the rest of the way should do it for the Sox but the flipside of this is that the Yankees only need to play .653 ball the rest of the way to force a tie in the AL East. The Yankees have been playing over .720 ball since the All-Star break so the division race is definitely on.
Wily Mo Pena supposedly clear waivers today and therefore any team is free to try to cut a deal for him with the Red Sox. Bobby Kielty has signed a minor league contract with the club and the contract evidently has a clause saying the deal can be voided if he is not called up to "The Show" within one week. I am not impressed. This season, Kielty, a 31-year-old switch-hitter batted .200 with three RBIs in 13 games with the A's. Kielty has a career Major League average of .255 with 52 home runs and 244 RBIs in 579 games with Minnesota, Toronto and Oakland. These numbers equate roughly to a 14 hr season with 70 RBIs and of course a .255 average. Unless the Red Sox get something good in return for Wily Mo, I for one am in favor of continuing to work with Wily Mo and not become overly concerned or enamored with Kielty. Let's not forget, the Sox have already parted with Bronson Arroyo to get Wily Mo. Also don't forget, Wily Mo's numbers were fairly decent last year--much better than Kielty's numbers project. Nonetheless, I suspect I am in the minority on this one.
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